


Dark Seed

by redhonedge



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Ruby & Sapphire & Emerald | Pokemon Ruby Sapphire Emerald Versions
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4267158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhonedge/pseuds/redhonedge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>jealousy is a wicked thing.<br/>it warps the mind, disillusions it of the reality of the situation.</p>
<p>and sometimes, it is simply too late to fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Seed

He was with that woman again.

Maxie shouldn’t have cared about it—shouldn’t have minded the way she looked at him, the way she laughed and touched his hand with every fit of giggles. His heart shouldn’t have been scorched with rage as she managed to wrangle him into a hug and hold him there for longer than was necessary. He shouldn’t have cared. Yet he did, but as nothing more than an on-looker with little influence, he was left to bask in his jealousy, his building anger.

It had been years since he had even officially spoken to him.  
Days since he had been invited to some party, some lunch out with friends.  
Daily did he receive such invitations and turn them down, noting the list of guests that would also be there and seeing her name on the list as well. He could feel his heart blacken with every time he saw it— _Shelly—_ and every time that name was forced to slip from his tongue it came out bitter and dripping with resentment.  
Yet he never saw it.  
He was a blind, bumbling idiot who was ignorant to the emotions of those around and even her. Perhaps that was a blessing. But it was more like a curse.  
  
He was growing wiser, and from his vantage point of them across the street in his favorite diner, Maxie watched him react to Shelly as he brewed over his coffee. His fingers clutched a bit tighter to the handle of the cup, feeling his fingernails scrape against the hard surface as he reciprocated her touches.  
Where her hands fell, he mimicked—returning her hugs, her hand touches, and the coffee within his cup quivered as he saw lips brush her cheek.  
His eyes switched away, focused on the waitress who smiled, her hands bracing the plate with his order.  
Maxie found himself mimicking her, his smile tight and with a bit of tooth even managing to slip through.  
A dark seed bloomed in his heart.

\---

The invitations came slower.  
They eased into a trickle, piling up as he simply gave up on answering, responding with a courteous ‘no thank you’ or an ‘I’m busy that day’.  
One day, it all stopped.  
His mailbox no longer hosted one or two invitations and only had bills to offer him.  
He heard nothing from him.  
The dark seed began to turn its hidden face towards the black sun.

\---

Maxie began to frequent his favorite diner far more frequently, drowning himself in coffee and small pastries. Tabitha tried talking to him into coming back, into returning to their circle of friends. Shelly had become worried about him.  
The smooth, dark surface of his coffee reflected a hollow visage and dead eyes that hid a whirlwind of shame, disgust, and self-loathing that whipped about in his head.

\---

It had been months.  
He no longer kept contact with his friends, what few he had, and holed himself up in his home, venturing out only for necessities and to visit that same diner.  
Vague familiarity was needed to clutch onto some semblance of sanity, and the comforting, warm atmosphere of the diner eased his troubled soul some as he worked himself out.

Gazing out the window at the snow-blanketed sidewalks, his eyes flickered up when seeing a couple walking down, their hands tightly entwined and their shoulders brushing. Maxie began to rub the handle of his coffee mug with the pad of his thumb, anxious and quick, trying to form some sort of distraction. He couldn’t see their faces, but he saw a glimpse of orange hair and then another glance warranted him tanned skin, a broad build unmistakable.  
They stopped at a spot he remembered seeing _them_ standing at some time ago, during the beginning of his constant patronage of this humble diner.

He hadn’t noticed how his hand had begun to shake, how his heart thrummed in his chest like a frantic bird seeking escape.  
It worsened as he saw them shift, the taller kneeling down slowly, the shorter putting her hands to her mouth—Shelly, putting her hands to her mouth—Archie, kneeling down, his hands revealing a box with a ring inside.

The dark seed bloomed and displayed its rotten petals to the sun.

\---

“It’s so sad he didn’t reach out to anybody. We kept asking him to come out, but…”  
Shelly’s words didn’t read Archie, his mind numbed to everything as he stared at the newspaper in his hands. His eyes kept looking it over and over—he had already read it five times, but perhaps another five would change what was written there. Maybe he stared hard enough his name would be burnt away from where it laid in the obituary and it wouldn’t have ever been there.  
He wouldn’t be listening to Shelly’s empty attempts at comfort, having to feel her hand on his shoulder.  
“His funeral’s Saturday. Tabitha told me. Let’s have a nice send off for him, right, Archie?”  
She rubbed his shoulder and his eyes still stared at the paper, dead and hollow.

\---

He watched her back retreat from him, his face stinging from the slap he endured, his tongue tasting foul from the words he said.  
_I don’t love you anymore. I’m calling off the wedding._  
Seeing her turn red with fury, her eyes filling with tears, had hurt him.  
It was a deep ache in his chest that hurt far more than his reddened cheek, though it was not quite enough to make him feel regretful.  
  
Storm clouds brewed and he looked to the headstone by his foot, where the dirt was still fresh and the headstone itself was polished.  
Flowers swathed the base, colorful and full of life against the dull, muted grey that blended in with the sea of similar headstones.  
Slowly, he settled onto the recently cut grass, his eyes following the distant figure of Shelly, watching her become nonexistent, the first drops of rain hitting his cheeks.

And he wept.  


  
_I always loved Maxie._


End file.
